In which I have a story that WILL NOT GO AWAY!

  

Am not meant to be writing at the moment.

Am not meant to be writing at the moment.

Am not meant to be writing at the moment.

Am not meant to be writing at the moment.

This was my mantra all weekend. I pictured myself as Bart Simpson, writing this in chalk along the blackboard of my mind (I don't look very good yellow, by the way).

See, the thing is, I am, technically, "between projects". One round of edits in; another forthcoming; my "in-between-projects" project completed ...

Husband Bear said I should take a break. "Don't start anything new," he said. "You will be very busy again soon."

So I, Sensible Wife Bunny, said, "Yeah, you're probably right. I'll take a break. I'll just ... like ... read lots?"

And so, on Friday night, I said to myself: No Writing This Weekend. Instead, I planned to do lots of gymming, friend-meeting, cat-hugging, reading and maybe watch W, which I have been meaning to watch for yonkers.

It started off pretty well. Saturday morning I got up early as usualy but instead of writing I finished reading Timecatcher by Marie Louise Fitzpatrick (which was kind of made of awesome). Then I went to yolates. 

Then I had a couple of hours to kill before meeting some friends.

This is the bit where I must make a confession.

I kind of, sort of, maybe almost a little bit took my laptop out with me. Maybe.

Okay, so I did. And I was there, in the coffee shop, with a peppermint tea in front of me and two hours to kill and ... a story came.

It just popped into my mind! Unbidden! Honest!

Actually, if I am being TOTALLY honest, it was not a whole story but, rather, a character. 

Her name is Clementine. She is sixteen, in her first year of college, and has enrolled in a philosophy class with an unconventional teacher who instructs the class that, for the whole term, they will spend their time writing whatever comes into their heads. At first, Clementine feels nervous and uncomfortable about this seemingly pointless exercise and the complete freedom it affords her, when she is used to being "taught things" that "fill up her mind".

Clementine is slightly overweight, but wears it well. It's her friends that worry about her weight, not her. They are pretty and popular and they want Clementine to fit in. 

Clem isn't sure she wants to fit in.

Clem has a perfect big sister, Sophie, and a brother who never comes out of his room. Her friends are moving on to a cooler crowd. She has a big crush on Hayden Justice, college rock star. Her friends are trying to set her up with Brett, who is friends with their new boyfriends. And then there is Frederick Paul, who is in her philosophy class, too. He's a geek who wears old-fashioned clothes and hangs out by himself at lunch time. He isn't exciting, like Hayden. So why can't Clem stop thinking about him?

So, this is my story. Can you see why I couldn't get it out of my head? Do you blame me, now, for being very weak yesterday and writing 5,000 words?

I just couldn't stop.

Don't tell the Husband Bear!

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever got a book-worm?

In which ... stuff starts happening!

I started writing - for real, not just scribbles in the many journals my Dad bought me - about two and a half years ago. I was enrolled in my Masters in Arts (Literary Studies). I enrolled thinking it would be a good string to my bow in my career as a librarian. I was working in a high school at the time and so I enrolled in a unit in YA literature. The unit was half theory/half creative, and for the creative portion we had to write a short story.

It was during this unit that I discovered I cannot write short stories.

I got to the end of my word limit and realised that my "short story" was actually a first chapter - the first chapter of my first ever novel, Dear Sally Sunshine.

 Dear Sally Sunshine was a simple story about a secret admirer who helps a geeky girl find her strength. It was also the book that found me my amazing agent, and helped me to meet the incredible team at Allen and Unwin, who will, in October, publish my first published novel, Three Things About Daisy Blue.

Three Things About Daisy Blue has been the making of me as a writer. It taught me to plan, draft, edit, redraft, work to deadlines, take and use editorial guidance. It also taught me this is what I want to do, as a job, for the rest of my life.

Three Things About Daisy Blue doesn't come out until October (and between now and then I will experience another big milestone - my first European trip), but the process has begun. In the past week I have seen a book jacket, found myself on the "Title Page" book database we use for work, and heard from a friend that Three Things About Daisy Blue was presented as a "highlight" at the Allen and Unwin conference. 

It feels real now.

I know I will get a chance to thank people inside the book jacket (squee), but I really want to do it right now as well.

So! My eternal gratitude goes to my precious Mum, Dad and brother Richard, and my fabulous in-laws; to Nan, Jodie and Eva; to my best friend, Julia, and her best man, Ryan; to my North Westie mates; to my colleagues at the bookynook; to my Nan and Auntie Shirley; to my Twitter peeps who are a constant support; to Mephistopheles Danger Gordon, my writing companion; to beloved Dolly; to my Mures Writing Group; and finally, to the Husband Bear, without whom my heart would not beat. 

Enough of that! Getting teary!

I know this week is just another step on an amazing journey, but it feels momentous and I feel so privileged.

In which I started an exciting new project!

Ever since I read Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight, by the stupendous Nick Earls and the super-wonderful Rebecca Sparrow, I have been dying to cowrite a novel. And when I say "cowrite", I actually had very specific ideas about HOW I wanted to cowrite. I didn't want to cowrite in the same way Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl cowrote Beautiful Creatures (much as I loved that book). I wanted, specifically, to cowrite a book the way Nick and Rebecca did; the way Penni Russon and Kate Constable did with the glorious Dear Swoosie. 

I wanted my own character. I wanted the other author to have their own character. I wanted a chapter each, back to back. I wanted a conversation between characters and authors. Oh! And I thought it might be fun if the book was (what I call), straight fantasy (i.e. wizards, dragons, faeries, but no vampires, werewolves or fallen angels).

Too much to ask?

Apparently not!

After all this time (Joel and Cat came out a whole thirteen years ago), I have finally received my wish. I have begun work on a tandem cowritten novel with a very, very, very super-dooper awesome fantasy writer. 

AND I AM HAVING SUCH FUN!

It's like how going to see a fabulous movie is SO much better when you see it with a great friend. Youcan talk about it afterwards; dissect it; reminisce about favourite scenes and spunkiest actors. 

I love my character - a princess forced into hiding amongst a troop of footsoldiers. I love my cowriter's (SQUEE! Love saying that) character just as much. I love that she (my cowriter) insists on manticores, and I am really keen for a bit of human-faery lovin'. I think it is going to an awesome book and great fun ta boot.

Writing is such a solitary profession. It is also (in my opinion) the most fun profession OF ALL TIME, but it is SO much more fun when you do it with a friend!

In which I was sick ...

Last week, I got sick. Not serious sick. Not hospital-level sick. Just plain old, garden-variety, lying on the couch, hating the world and everything in it (excepte Mephistopheles Danger Gordon, The Husband Bear and salt and vinegar rice crackers) sick.

All would have been lost in a very depressing, puddly, all-losty kind of way, EXCEPT ...

it turns out when I get sick I become ...

SUPER WRITER PERSON!!!

Seriously! Before this bout of sickness I was convinced all I was capable of doing while sick was lie on the couch and yell at inanimate objects, but it appears I ALSO have a hitherto undiscovered talent for writing lots in between my yelling! 15,000 words worth of lots! WOOT!

Whether it's good lots, I am not entirely sure. I will spend the weekend finding out, but at the moment I am on a big 15,000 word long cloud of writerly bliss.

So, the moral of this story: sick = bad and 15,000 words is not enough to make it un-bad and repeat-worthy, but it does numb the pain slightly.

Stuff ...

Stuff I want to read this week:

Never Bite a Boy On A First Date - by Tamara Summers

Vulture of Sommerset - by Stephen M Giles

The Heights - by Brian James (even though it gets the songs from that 90's TV show stuck in my head every time I see it on the shelf)

Find Your Tribe - by Rebecca Sparrow

Stuff I want to watch this week:

The rest of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, even though I know it will make me cry BUCKETS - Oh, you have torn my life all to pieces... ... sob!

At least one episode of Being Human

Last night's Dr Who again because it was made of Tardis-sized awesome!

Stuff I want to listen to this week:

Century Child - Nightwish

Verisakeet - Moonsorrow

These Days of Grays - Sonata Arctica

Victory Songs - Ensiferum

(and yes, for anyone who was wondering, I am on a Finnish metal bender ...)

Stuff I want to buy this week:

NOTHING! I AM SAVING FOR EUROPE, DAMMIT!

Stuff I want to write this week:

A poem for my little brother

More of my Finnish metal music WIP (hence the obsession, but also because it's fantabulous, gosh-darnit!)

Stuff I want to wear this week:

Jeggings. Ignore the haters! They are COMFY!

Stuff I want to do this week:

Go walking in the Cascade Gardents with my Husband Bear (and maybe run down a hill this time)

Tell my Mum she's beautiful

Tell my Dad he's the best man that ever there was

Ignore the people who make me sad and stabby

Hug the ones who make me smile and who never give up on me

In which I freak out about sending a manuscript off ...

It is official. I have scared, paranoid, ridiculous writer troll disease.

The symptoms of this disease are as follows: 

1. Eating too many corn chips (although, this may just be a symptom of being me)
2. Yelling at the cat for trying to sit on my knee
3. Yelling at the Husband Bear for ... umm ... waking up
4. Reading my MS SIXTEEN TIMES
5. Deliberating over the width of bowsprits (this is a pointy thing on a boat)
6. Adding in an additional character, then removing her, then adding her again
7. Giving one of my protagonists two middle names. Just because.
8. Reading my previous (prequel) MS three times
9. Going to the gym a lot
10. Falling off the treadmill at the gym after having AN EPIPHANY
11. Yelling at the Husband Bear for playing his guitar
12. Yelling at the cat for wanting to be fed
13. Saying over and over to anyone who will listen "You don't understand. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!"
14. Thinking that tangerine chocolate and salt and vinegar chips is a good breakfast idea
15. Obsessively wearing tights
16. Going to the hairdresser because she doesn't mind listening to me talk about shapeshifting Tasmanian tigers for an hour
17. Not stopping typing when I cut my finger. Even when there is blood in my keyboard

I know. It sounds like I am an evil, nasty horrid little troll, doesn't it (Husband Bear and Mephy the Psychotic Black Cat nod vigorously), but I am reliably informed all above symptoms are normal when a usually pretty sweet-natured person is working on a manuscript. And my symptoms have neutralised now the MS has winged its way off. But still, it would be nice to have some reassurance I am not, in fact, a troll. Reassurance? Please?

In which I make a list of things I love about being a writer ...

1. I can work in my jammies
2. I can work with my cat on my knee (or feet, or, sometimes, computer - not so good)
3. I can work while eating corn chips (don't tell Husband Bear. He hates it when I eat over my keyboard)
4. I can MAKE STUFF HAPPEN. In life, this isn't very common. Most of the time, I don't feel like I have much control or power over things. When I'm writing, I am God
5. I can actually create people. And worlds. And creatures. This is fun.
6. I can, every half an hour or so, stand up and do a spontaneous happy dance around me lounge room. They have forbidden me from doing this in my other job.
7. I can work while listening to Badly Drawn Boy, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Shins, Ensiferum, Opeth, Sonata Arctica, Paddy Casey, Martha Wainwright, The Smiths. At work we only have Naff Classical, Naff World Music, Naff Lounge or Naff Elevator Music.
8. I get to meet all sorts of awesome writer people in the Twitterverse and Blogosphere. They are lovely, funny, supportive and kind
9. Ditto for the real world. And, an added bonus, in the real world we can have hot chips together. Woot!
10. I make my librarian parents proud!
11. I get to read books, watch movies, go on road trips "for research"
12. I get to be violent, aggressive, sexy, smart, cool, funny, scary - all the things I am not (usually), in the real world
13. I never have to grow up. In the real world I'm getting old and wrinkly. In my books, I'm always a kid
14. I get to have a writer group. For a shy, kind of anti-social person ... I get to have a GROUP!!!
15. I can blame all of my moods on being a writer. Not that the Husband Bear often accepts this as an excuse. But still.
16. Sometimes, I get out of housework.
17. Sometimes, when I am being lazy and just sitting there doing nothing, I can pretend I am thinking of ideas
18. I'm crap at making stuff but, soon, I will be able to hold something I made in my hands. And it won't look as bad as the spatula I made in Grade 8 Technology class!
19. I now don't feel so bad about not being able to cook, whistle, sew, ride a bike, wink, drive, do the splits, sing or knit (or any one of the other zillions of things I can't do). Cos I can WRITE!
20. All the nasty people? They get made into baddies in my books. And, sometimes, reach sticky ends (yesssss). The power. The power.
21. My High School English teacher is proud of me.
22. My Husband Bear can imagine a life, when I am "The Next JK Rowling" when he can retire and make beer and breed goats and be a pirate
23. In October, I will be in a series with Penni Russon, Scot Gardner and Kate Constable (and several other incredible peeps). This makes me happy beyond belief.
24. This morning, I travelled all around Tasmania without leaving my lounge room. Tonight, I'm going to Finland!
25. It's all I can do. It's all I want to do. It makes my heart sing